July 3rd, 10:45pm--Michelle Kelly is a young psychology graduate student and
lab assistant, working with a sleeping man at a lab facility. In a hurry to
catch her plane, just before leaving the lab she clumsily backs into his
medical gear, disturbing him. As she walks the darkened corridors of the
building, she hears a low growl. Changing her route, she exits the building and
crosses the parking lot. Outside, she hears the growl again and catches a
glimpse of a figure lurking in the shadows. She walks around the corner, down
the street, and around another corner…into the arms of a monstrously tall thing
covered in long strands of wet vegetation. It seizes her, lifts her
effortlessly, and crushes her.
Carl is en route to the dentist and catches a police radio broadcast requesting
an ambulance to the Chez Voltaire restaurant. Carl heads there and discovers
that the fancy restaurant’s chef, Honoré Piaget, has been murdered. As Carl
begins snapping photos, he notices a police official removing samples of vegetable
matter from the man’s body. Carl continues through the scene and encounters
Captain Siska, who is talking to the owner. Captain Siska tells Carl he
believes someone seeking revenge murdered Piaget. He has a suspect, and Carl
can visit headquarters to learn more after the man is arraigned. Siska has
little to say about the vegetable material, beyond suggesting it is a
restaurant, and it might be salad. Carl is mystified by Siska’s very reasonable
tone--this is the man reporters used to call “Mad Dog” Siska. Siska reveals
that a year of group therapy has calmed him down, saved his marriage, and helped
him avert a heart attack.
At police headquarters, Carl learns the suspect is Ramon Clemente, former
pastry chef of Chez Voltaire. He hasn’t confessed but was drunk the previous
evening and cannot remember where he was. He also has a motive: three days ago
Piaget fired him. Clemente immediately tried to attack Piaget with a meat
cleaver. He was stopped but witnesses overheard him say he would try again.
Siska does not know how Clemente managed to crush Piaget’s chest, although
Clark points out it looks like it had been “massaged by a bulldozer.”
Carl visits the police lab next and tells lab man Paco that kids have let the
air out of his tires. When Paco leaves to investigate, Carl rifles the files
and discovers the Latin name of the vegetation found on Piaget’s corpse. He
also finds a cross-reference to the file on Michelle Kelly’s hit-and-run
accident. With no easy way to find the common name of the plant, and eighteen
Michelle Kellys to investigate, Carl decides to write up a story of Piaget’s
murder and leave the rest of the work for tomorrow.
That night Bobby Ray Solange, aspiring musician and current street performer,
finishes his day by visiting the basement of the Samuel DeChamplain apartments
to unwind with a joint. No sooner has he lit up than something tall and plant-covered
bursts through the door…
Carl works his way through nine Michelle Kellys before discovering the one who
was murdered. Her landlady gives him the name of her former employer, Dr. Aaron
Pollack, and Carl pays him a visit. Pollack is a sleep researcher and his
current subject is a man who suffers from narcolepsy, a disorder whose
sufferers are prone to falling asleep in the midst of any activity. Carl’s
theory is that Michelle was murdered; but Pollack does not agree. As far as he
knew, Michelle had no enemies--she was just an eager and bright (if clumsy)
graduate student. Given her clumsiness, Pollack thinks it’s perfectly
reasonable that she blundered in front of a speeding vehicle. Her clumsiness
damaged equipment, spilled bedpans, and even almost awakened Pollack’s subject,
nearly ruining the study.
Carl’s next clue is the Latin name of the plant found on Piaget’s body. He
visits the Chicago Botanical Gardens and learns that the plant is Spanish Moss,
a species native to the bayous of Louisiana. The hot, wet conditions in which
it thrives do not exist in Chicago--the botanical gardens host the only
specimen in a thousand miles.
Carl spends the rest of the day in a fruitless search for some connection
between Kelly and Piaget. That evening he collects another lead--an informant
tells him of Bobby Ray Solange’s murder and where it occurred. Carl forces the
door and enters the darkened apartment basement, where the building super
confronts him. Carl represents himself as a health department inspector and
learns about the facts of Solange’s murder. The super relates how a mahogany
door was smashed to splinters, and how (in his opinion) a gang must have
attacked this kid and beat him to death. Then they dragged in vegetables and
threw dirty water all over the floor. And all around the body were nickels and
dimes and quarters –the daily take of a street musician.
Checking up street musicians, Carl gives Jean the Fiddler ten dollars but only
learns that Solange was from Louisiana. But a nearby man tells Carl more in
return for some extra money. The man is Pepe LaRue--actually Morris Shapiro of
the Bronx--and he, too, knew Solange. Shapiro describes Solange as a nice guy
who had an unpleasant roommate named Paul Langois. Langois had a nasty temper
and Morris thinks he murdered Solange. While they’re talking Morris drops a
step or two behind and then disappears in mid-conversation--only his beret and
alms cup remain. Searching for Morris, Carl slips through a gap in the wooden
fence. In the yard beyond he hears a low growling. Climbing up some stairs,
Carl hears the noise again and snaps a couple of shots of something big and
dark shambling across the yard.
After developing the pictures, Carl finds Tony rehearsing a speech for the
Press Club. His topic: the difference between an unfettered press and the
irresponsibility of yellow journalism and ballyhoo. Tony asks Carl to listen
and comment but Carl’s constant distractions derail that effort. Carl tells
Tony how the police very quietly released Clemente, their suspect in Piaget’s
murder--quietly, because they haven’t got a suspect to replace him. But Carl
does--the…whatever…that he photographed in the yard. The photograph is blurry
but Carl believes it is Paul Langois, who he thinks murdered Morris Shapiro to
shut him up. Tony isn’t interested; he wants to resume his speech. As he does,
Carl ducks out through the fire door.
Carl visits Siska with his theory, but Siska is in a rage. Carl’s antics have
flushed a year and a half of therapy down the drain--the old “Mad Dog” is back.
Siska tells Carl that Morris Shapiro is one for the missing persons file, but
he does reveal that the police have tracked Paul Langois. Unfortunately,
Langois has an iron-clad alibi--he’s been asleep for over six weeks--he’s the
man on whom Aaron Pollack is conducting sleep research.
Carl returns to Pollack’s lab and shines him on about a feature series on sleep
research –Pollack doesn’t buy it and reveals the police have already confirmed
Langois alibi. Pollack confirms that Langois has been asleep for more than six
weeks and that he has not been allowed to dream during that time. The alarms go
off; Pollack cannot explain what they mean--they “happen from time to time.” He
summons a security guard to escort Carl out.
About this time, motorcycle Patrolman Warren Lundt is driving his beat on
Dalstrom Avenue in the South Side when he sees something big and plant-covered
duck around a corner. Racing towards the corner, Lundt is surprised when the
thing jumps in front of him--he wrecks his bike against it and is knocked to
the ground. The creature closes on him as he empties his service weapon into it
without effect.
As Carl reviews his recorded interview with Shapiro, his attention is drawn to
a particular comment about a bayou legend called Peremalfait. To learn more,
Carl must find another Cajun, so he visits the recording studio where Jean the
fiddler from earlier is cutting his demo. After several interruptions, Carl
forces Jean to reveal that Peremalfait is the boogieman, a creature covered
with rot and Spanish moss that has lived in the upper bayous since before the
Cajuns came. Cajun mothers used the legend to keep their children in line by
telling them if they didn’t behave, “Peremalfait would get them,” squeezing the
life right out of them. The only way to destroy him is to stab him with a spear
made from the wood of the bayou gum.
Since Lundt used to roust Langois, his death has sent Siska back to the
university sleep lab where he demands that Pollack awaken the subject. Carl
arrives and suggests that Langois is dreaming these people to death. Somehow
his unconscious dream-repressed mind has brought Peremalfait to life. Carl
backs up his claim by finding spots on the EEG where alarms occurred, pointing
out that they coincide with the murders. Siska wants to talk to Langois and
orders Pollack to awaken him. Pollack administers twice the usual dosage of
methamphetamine but Langois remains asleep. When Carl suggests someone whittle
a spear of bayou gum, Langois has another of his strange “attacks.” Carl
believes that the Peremalfait “heard” him plotting its death, and that brought
on the attack. Siska wonders if Langois is dying, Pollack says it’s too soon to
say that--but then Langois dies.
Carl figures the matter is at an end--no more Langois, no more murders. He
returns to the INS office to find the janitor mopping up a leak. Tony and a few
friends return from the Press Club, where Tony’s speech was a huge success (he
cut it short). Tony invites Carl to celebrate with him--Carl returns to his
desk, wipes off some water, reaches into a desk drawer, and lets out a yell as
he pulls out a mass of Spanish Moss. Drawn by the yell, Tony emerges from his
office to ask what’s wrong and Carl realizes there’s no leak, that the mess is
because Peremalfait has been in the office, looking for him. Peremalfait did
not die with Langois but took on an independent life.
Fearing for his life, Carl returns to the Botanical Gardens and cuts a length
of bayou gum from the exhibit there, then fashion a crude spear from it. Then
he goes to the only place in Chicago where a swamp monster could live--the
sewers. Spear and flashlight in hand, Carl pries open a manhole cover and
descends into the fetid water below to begin his search. Very shortly, he hears
it--faint and distant--a growl.
Above ground, a city employee has spotted the open manhole cover and closes it,
just as Carl discovers Morris’ body on a ledge. That discovery sends a
panicking Carl back up the ladder--just as a heavy machine drives to a stop
atop the manhole cover. Carl has no choice but to find another exit. Carl spots
a trail of vegetation in the water, coming from a mass that rises from the
water. He has found Peremalfait, or it has found him. Carl panics and the
monster shambles after him, losing him when he ducks under the foul water. Carl
loses his bag with the spear and ducks down a side passage as the monster
shambles off. Carl half dives, half falls out of the side passage and the noise
draws the monster, which begins to chase him again. Carl finds his bag at the
base of the ladder as Peremalfait draws closer. Carl manages to grab his crude
spear and impale the monster, which groans for a moment then pitches backward
into the water. Locating another ladder, Carl emerges from the sewers, aware
that all evidence of the monster has washed away.
Written by Gadfly on Jan 12, 2016